 A yoga retreat has so many benefits. Personally, whenever I return home from a retreat I have a renewed sense of energy, and I am inspired and excited about life. If you are experiencing any of the signs below, I highly recommend you considering booking a yoga retreat.  1. You want some "Me Time" Do you find yourself constantly doing things for other people? Are you always putting others first? Do you crave time to sit back and relax with a cup of tea and a good book? If the answer is YES, a yoga retreat will do the trick! You will find certainly find time to rest, and reflect. 2. You want to meet people with similar interests Expanding your network is great both personally and professionally. A yoga retreat is the perfect time to meet new people with similar interests, dreams, and visions. By learning about your new found friends you will expand your knowledge, shift your perspective, and you will most likely make friends who will literally change your world.  3. You could use a jump start to living a healthy lifestyle I always LOVE how I feel after returning home from a yoga retreat. I always feel so healthy and refreshed and it makes it much easier to continue a healthy exercise and meal plan. I also always get new ideas for foods to add to my diet, and cooking techniques. 4. You want to experience something new Trying new things is super rewarding. Traveling to new places, trying new foods, and meeting new people. There is a lot of new at a yoga retreat. If you are looking to try a variety of new things, definitely give yourself the chance by booking a retreat. 5. You are feeling stuck in your current life If your days are feeling, same old, same old, it's time to book a retreat. By giving yourself a break from everyday life, you will refresh your soul and return much more grateful for the good things in life. Taking a break for yourself is one of the best things you can do. Everybody needs a chance to reset once in awhile.  6. You want to expand your yoga practice At a yoga retreat OF COURSE you will expand your yoga practice. You will work with different teachers, meet people of all levels, and you may even try a type of yoga you have never explored. A yoga retreat is the perfect time to explore and dive deeper into the goodness of yoga! 7. You are looking to be inspired If you are looking for inspiration in life a yoga retreat is the perfect remedy! Yogis are by nature, kind, open hearted people, who will support you, and love you no matter what. A yoga retreat is a safe space where you can be honest about your dreams and feelings. I have no doubt you will find people to support and inspire you!  So, what are you waiting for? Start thinking about treating yourself to a yoga retreat! You will not regret it! For information on Yoga Camp’s upcoming retreat, that is sure to address ALL the above, click here. I hope you join us! Much LOVE! Lacey  Lacey DoboszenskiYoga Camp, Travel and Media Specialist, RYT 200
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 I recently completed a full year of handstands. Yes, I did a handstand every single day in 2016 and documented it. Every single day. The world looks different now.  1) You will make incredible progress on your handstand journey! My orginal handstand goal on Janurary 1st, 2016 was, "work up to a 10 second hold and leg variations." I have gotten a lot stonger and a lot more consistent in my handstands. I have to tell you right away that I have not yet acheived my original goal. I am a lot closer. I can consistently hold a handstand now for 1-3 seconds. I can't yet really do any intentional leg variations. I thought I would reach my goal, but I can assure you, I am in no way dissappointed in myself. I am actually very proud of myself for staying committed and for the progress I have made. 2) You will explore your city, and the world and yourself. It was interesting how motivating the art of the challenge was for me. It enticed me to explore my city more than I normally would and take more trips. I also observed how it was fueling me as an artist.
Taking a picture every day for to share on social media was a unique motivator for a lot of reasons. Publically announcing my self-imposed challenge via social media kept me accountable and not only motivated to perservere, but also make my challenge as artistic as possible. I am a fanatic about Instagrm and also the layout of my gallery. The idea of creating a grid that would flow together beautifully also played a role in mt journey. It drove me to seek out new places, different lighting, and explore different variations to keep my IG gallery beautiful. I don't think I would have stuck to the challenge if it hadn't been for my public comittment via social media, and I know it wouldn't have been so fun and motivating.  We were recently asked the question during our Yoga Camp Photo Journey Retreat to Madeline Island, “Could you please provide more direction on what clothing to bring, what will look best for photos?” We love this question, because dressing for yoga photos really is a bit of an art. What does go into choosing the perfect outfit? The answer, not so simple. First off, it really comes down to awareness. Being aware of how you and your body will be situated in the photos yow plan to take. You need to ask yourself questions such as: Will I be upside-down in any of my photos? Will I be a silhouette? What is the weather like? What are the colors like outside? What is my lighting like? All of these factors can mater when choosing what to wear. While this is a topic that could have many subtopics, we are going to keep in simple for starters. Here are a few simple tips to choosing the perfect outfit for a yoga photo shoot.  1. Stand out – You want an outfit that will stand out amongst your background. Usually I would say, wear bright colors, but standing out could be wearing all black if you have a light background! Think about where your photo shoot will take place and make sure you will STAND OUT!  2. Wear clothing appropriate for the shoot – Think about what type of yoga you will be doing in this photo shoot. Do you need all out yoga clothes to get into some bendy poses, or are you casually posing and can be in more street clothing? If you are going to be inverting, make sure you are wearing tight fitting clothes so your shirt doesn’t end up over your head when you are upside-down.  3. Color Palate- Think about the season, the colors in your background, and how everything will look together! This coincides with #1 in the way you want to stand out, but you also want to look good in your background. You want the colors to go together. Each picture truly tells a story and you want it to be cohesive. I personally love bold colors, but it has to be the right bold color! Experiment for yourself and look through other people’s photos to see what you personally find visually appealing. Color is a very personal thing and it is a beautiful way to tell your story in photographs.  I hope these tips help you next time you are picking out an ourfit for some yoga photography fun! Make sure to like and share this post! Leave me comments below if you are interested in more details on this topic! Namaste my friends!
 I recently led the Second Annual Yoga Camp Photo Journey Retreat. It was an exceptional experience. I love this facet of Yoga Camp because I love serving women and helping guide them in their healing in the context of a carefully curated retreat. Honestly the whole retreat was outstanding. We had an amazing time! All the activities were great, and the weather was cooperating, which was an enormous blessing. Thank you God! I can tell you about all of retreat experiences more in detail in another blog post later, and you can check my social media channels for more info and photos, but I want to focus today on something that was completely unexpected. I booked the dates of this year's retreat over the full moon which occurred on October 15th, so we planned a full moon fire ceremony. That was amazing too! It was even warm enough to create the ceremony outside. That is another experience I would love to share more in detail about at a later time.  After our ceremony and finalé celebration, we went to bed. I woke up the next morning to take Maxime, my giant dog, outside. For some reason I followed my intuition and let her out the back door. I usually take her out quickly through the front door in the morning, but something told me to go in a different direction. I thought the sky looked pretty, and so I followed the sky down closer to the banks of the lake and peaked through the trees, only to find something I never even knew existed. The full moon on the horizon. I wanted to let the campers that were interested in on this blessing, so I ran inside and announced eloquently, "Full Moon! Outside! Still Up!" Then I ran back outside and down to the dock. What I saw was, the full moon, still up from the night before and it was setting over the horizon mixed with the gentle colors of sunrise floating in from East. I didn't even know something like this was a thing. I had nothing to compare it to, and I've never seen anything like it before. I've seen the moon high in the sky on occasion while the sun is up, but this was entirely different. The mixture of the colors and the epic landscape was one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.  I often observe that when I let go of expectations, or have no preconceived notions of what will be, I am the happiest. When I have expectations, I am usually disappointed. The full moon in the morning surprised me, and filled me with joy! This full moon reminded me that life is full of gifts: some that I have not yet experienced, and some that I didn't even know were possible. This beautiful moon reminded me to let go of my expectations, let myself be surprised, and to love and experience life fully. When I walked back up to the cabin, I was immediately reminded of one of my favorite quotes about balance. "Some nights stay up till dawn, as the moon sometimes does for the sun. Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way of a well, then lifted out into light." Rumi Now I have experienced this in a deeper sense than I even knew was possible. In sharing my experience with you, I urge you to follow your intuition. I urge you to take a deep breath, think about something you have expectations about and then let some of them go. If you are able, let all of your expectations go. Namaste my friend. With love, elizabeth Landscapes by Elizabeth Camp
Portrait by Marjorie Renn Solis   @MinnesotaYogini SUP yoga headstand at sunset. Photo by @elizabeth_camp. Instagram and Yoga. Some people like it, some people hate it, some people are completely unaware of it. Nonetheless, it’s there, and it’s a huge community. I actually have Instagram to thank for the fact that I’m sitting here writing this blog, I met Elizabeth Camp, the founder of Yoga Camp, through an Instagram connection and now I am the Yoga Camp Travel and Media Specialist. Who knew?! Amazing!
You can probably guess that at Yoga Camp we are fans of mixing Instagram and yoga. While we could go on forever about this subject, we are choosing our top five reasons why you should think about joining the wonderful world of IG yoga! 1. It encourages you to practice daily or perhaps gets you outside daily, whatever way, it gets you movin'. – One of the most popular things in the Instagram Yoga world are the challenges. In these challenges, you take a photo or video of yourself practicing a pose or something assigned daily by the challenge hosts. This gets you to get up and do at least one pose a day (and hopefully some warm up). There is a challenge for everyone, from moves like arm balances, heart openers or twists, yoga with your child or dog, to yoga based on lyrics to your favorite song – There are PLENTY to choose from! |
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February 2018
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